The 10th head of the Mitsui main family, Mitsui Takamine, who was the owner of Mitsui zaibatsu (a group of business conglomerate), built this building at an old site of a mansion of a daimyo feudal lord as his family’s private guest house in 1913. Mitsui zaibatsu is Japan’s oldest group of business conglomerate stems from Echigoya kimono shop in Nihonbashi, Edo (Tokyo), established by Mitsui Takatoshi in 1673 and this shop is present time Mitsukoshi department store. Designed by Josiah Conder, an invited architect from the U.K. by the Meiji Government, this boasts of the area of 23,200 square meters and total floor space of 5,200 square meters. Among many private guest houses built by the billionaires in Japan before the Second World War, its architectural beauty in Renaissance style is outstanding. Right after largely damaged by the Great Kanto Earthquake of 1923, it got complete seismic repair works in 1929. Through the takeover by U.S. occupation army after the war, it is used now as the main facility for the social gatherings among many companies of Mitsui group such as Mitsukoshi, Toyota, Toray, Fujifilm, O.S.K. Lines, Mitsui&Co., Mitsui-Sumitomo Bank, and the like.
Jason Hardy
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